Sterling, KS

At the 2020 census, Sterling was a Rice County city of 2,248 people and the home of Sterling College. The town grew as a commercial and rail center in the Arkansas River valley, drawing trade from farms along Cow Creek, the Little Arkansas, Peace Creek, and the surrounding prairie. Rice County's railroad expansion made Sterling a distributing point, and the town gave ten acres for the college that still sits near the center.

Sterling's old Santa Fe depot now serves as a law office, a neat bit of reuse for a town that once depended on trains to bring in supplies and send out crops. The college adds a four-year student population and a campus rhythm, while Jacam makes chemicals for the oil and gas industry. Sterling USD 376 serves the town's schools. That combination still shows. Sterling is a prairie trading town with a college square, a repurposed depot, and an economy that still mixes education, agriculture, and industry.